Thursday, February 23, 2012

Work has been going steady on my most recent still life. Multiple layers have been applied to the background, changing it from a cool light blue to a light grey, off white color. Man was that blue hard to tone down! I think I finally have the light as close as I originally pictured it, I may work some more areas of the background to see how far I can push it. As you can see there are no onions or tomatoes any where in the picture, now that's a change. Although my use of color is similar throughout my still life paintings, this one is a bit more mutted. I think not having a pop of bright red in the shape of a tomato is making this still life feel different. I still have a lot of work to do but I think I'm heading in the right direction. Other things going on in the studio are not as exciting, well at least not in the creative way. I have been stretching and preparing more linen, I'm getting ready for spring and summer plein air painting. My goal is to paint more than the twenty landscapes I painted last year. Time will tell on that one. Other still life ideas keep brewing every week, I'm pacing myself, but I have a feeling I may have a creative explosion soon and start a few paintings all at once. More to come.

About Me

"Anything under the sun is beautiful if you have the vision-it is the seeing of the thing that makes it so."
- Charles W. Hawthorne -
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"One of the functions of art is to remind us of common humanity. The artist, like the priest, can sometimes remind us that we are bound by an obligation to one another stronger and more lasting than the bonds of politics or economics."
- John Manchip White, Diego Velazquez: Painter and Courtier -
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"To defend an artist as original says little about his work except that it is in some way different from what preceded it. As such, originality itself is rarely a strong defense, for it is born more of admiration for audacity and perseverance than necessarily of understanding." - James H. Rubin, Manet's Silence and the Poetics of Bouquets -